Police Accreditation: $6,000 or $86,342?

Once again, the City Council will be asked to approve spending more than $80,000 on an accreditation process for the Police Division. It appears that the accreditation is done by the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police for $6,000 and the rest goes for consultant fees and software.

The money will come from a $405,946 forfeiture fund and the Union County Prosecutor's Office has approved the disbursement, but it still seems odd to me that the city would pay 14 times what other police departments have paid for accreditation. Silly me.

As noted on the resolution for Thursday's meeting, three of the costs will recur every year and must be accounted for in subsequent budgets. The total is $33,342 for those costs. In addition, accreditation is good for just three years, so will there be another $80,000 needed then to do it again? Also, the process alone does not guarantee a positive outcome, as noted in Edison's situation.

I could not find a list of allowable draw-downs from the forfeiture fund, but if more than $400,000 is in Plainfield's account, surely there should be some discussion of how other public safety needs might be met with those funds.

Forfeiture itself has gotten a bad rap at times. Law enforcement agencies can seize currency, vehicles and property connected to criminal activity. One prosecutor who excelled at such seizures was found to be abusing his power and committed suicide rather than face the consequences.

But when properly done, asset forfeiture serves both as a deterrent to criminal activity and a benefit to law enforcement agencies, as noted in an excerpt from the 2010 Union County Prosecutor's Office report:

Forfeiture actions promote major public policy objectives by encouraging property

owners to be more responsible with their property and deter them from using or allowing their

property to be used for, or in furtherance of, illegal activity. A corollary benefit is that the

forfeited property is distributed to the law enforcement agency or agencies that participated in

the investigation and seizure of the property. The forfeited property is to be utilized by the

seizing agency or agencies, solely, in furtherance of law enforcement purposes.

 In the calendar year 2010, the Seized Asset Forfeiture Unit opened 441 files, forfeited

$926,737.62 in United States currency, and 43 motor vehicles valued at $242,202.00, and other  26

forfeited property valued at $94,620.00 totaling $1,263,559.62 in total value of property

forfeited.